I want to see some seven year-olds fight to the death over Chef Boyardee. Because I can guarantee that the pot-bellied Ethiopian will pwn the Nintendo DS wielding American (even though wouldn't be able to open the can because... no can-opener). I would bet my inviolate asshole that any Chinese girl who didn't get her head bashed on the rocks over population control will do more in this world than scenester sluts with hair-extensions and a pack of Parliaments.

Seems like these days I go back & forth on whether I hope for the best in humanity, or watch the worst in it like reality-TV gone horribly wrong.

But honestly, the first-world seems to have lost it's edge. We've become complacent, too comfortable on top, forgetting that you don't stay balanced up there by being lazy. Every day jobs are shipped overseas because other countries do it better, cheaper, faster and easier than any American company or European union, raping the Earth, speaking twenty fucking languages at once. Solidarity versus diversity? Or maybe it's ability versus the appearance of competency...

There are warehouses in Guangdong where rows upon rows of computers are being played by twelve year-old sweatshop-style labor, farming items for online computer-games to be sold through eBay and other websites to bored American/Canadian teenagers and collegiate drop-outs. And I bet if they knew how unappreciative those Gwailo fuckers were for the life they've got, why, our little e-farmers would swim across the Pacific and bite their fucking ankles off.

The young fashionistas of Beverly-Hills and Orange County wouldn't last a day in the jungles of Ecuador among the Yanomamo or island mountains of New Guinea. Hyphy contortionists couldn't compare to the body-modifications of the Maasai... or their spear-wielding skills.

I want to pit a gang of Turkish street urchins against any high school football team in America, and watch those under-fed scraps beat the ever loving shit out of them through sheer survivalist desperation.

Basically, kids are too spoiled, too indoctrinated by shows like iCarly or The Suite Life of Zack and Cody who make them think they are special, too pampered with indulgence born out of parental fear of reprisal for daring to discipline their children. Kids think that they deserve a car, cell-phone and pre-paid college education. They act crazy! Ruckus upon tantrum upon Shirley Temple-esque emotional explosions that hearken to atomic-bombs set off in New Mexico.

And the tweens, teens, early 20's crowd ain't much better. The disaffected youth across middle-America, from burbclave to city to meta-metropolis are decadently dead inside. Before they even could rightly be called alive, they have come to represent exactly what the world hates about us.

College sluts laud sexual liberation with spread-legs while Africa is in the midst of an AIDS epidemic. Bros lift their trucks ever higher as floods wash away the raised houses in Malaysia. Financial district douchebags buy a Ficus for their corner-office as South-America clear-cuts its way to Tierra Del Fuego. Reality TV documents the faux-drama of carefully scripted personalities in Daisy of Love while the major news networks try to regain their lost relevancy with actual stories about Neda, and Obama's Healthcare plan.

I want to pluck the apathy right out of my generation's eyes. I want to stomp on their hands every time they reach for another slice of ignorant-pie. I want to grab them, shake them, wake them up and shout, "BE ALIVE!" I want them to realize that they have become walking corpses addicted to fashion, pills, and useless technological gadgets like zombies moaning for braaaaaaaains.

Saboteur Academia will prevail. Through guerrilla education and subversive learning, through jolting the cultural zeitgeist like a horse-fly. We'll form the Remarkably Disaffected Youth Brigade who will win the War on Apathetic Ignorance by any means necessary.

***BONUS***

But the reality is that there's no way to change the world. We can only change ourselves. The vast impulse to save my generation will have to be channeled elsewhere... like into blog-posts!

Monday, July 27, 2009

[3] artists I'm currently interested in that come [highly] recommended.

Meaghan Smith. Sounds similar to a folk-pop version of Billie Holiday, utilizing Disney-style music-video techniques and a romantic lyricism that melts like butter in the sun. She also has a beautiful cover of The Pixies, "Here Comes Your Man" that is frankly amazing. Check her out on iTunes/YouTube.

The Temper Trap. At first glance, mild alt-rock. Toms heavy drums, floating vocals, and a soft guitar riff all adrift amongst ambiance. Beneath the surface is a passionate wall of chordal progressions, filling your ears with nostalgia for high school dances and artistic expression. Enjoy with your last drink of the night.

Jamiroquai. Early 2000's funk you might recognize from "Center Stage", which featured their song "Canned Heat." These guys are masters at their craft, hearkening back to AWB, Wild Cherry, The Jimmy Castor Bunch, Kool & The Gang. Subdued groove and high-pitched vocals that scream without sounding like it. They're almost a cry. I especially have to give it up for the drummer, Derrick McKenzie, who sits in the pocket like a pro, coming out just when a fill would be most needed. It helps, it really does. You can't find good funk music like this anymore without having to dredge through a lot of top ten b-sides and smooth jazz.

Friday, July 24, 2009

I was born in a bloody mess of ambulance pillows and hospital sheets, screaming without the need for a doctor's requisite ass-slap. "When I was very young I forgot in the Trophonian cave how to laugh; but when I grew older and opened my eyes and contemplated the real world, I had to laugh, and have not ceased laughing, ever since."

Today is the first day of the rest of my life, or it was, or it will be, or something like that. Twenty-three is a random enough number for beginnings. For endings, for the great middle that makes up a story, for the first day of the last day of the someday, I suppose.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Was browsing through the pits of my "documents" folder, when I came upon an essay I wrote way back when I first conceived of this pen name, nickname, nome de plume, literary double. This rationalist justification of my pseudonym. The date stamped electronically upon it is December 2007.

Enjoy.

"Pen Name

What's the use of a pen-name? Does the anonymity and cleverness bring some aspect of the weird and cool to my writing? Will the stories, poetry, and essays become something more than what they are through my submersion into this word-&-paper persona?

Monday, July 13, 2009

Have you ever been so bored you started browsing random people on MS/FB? Picture it: late-night, empty glass of soda-pop, maybe vodka-shots, while lo-fi music or mainstream television reruns play in the background. You're bumming around on the computer, and all of a sudden you come upon some creamy delicious looking pics of a person's social networking profile. You click to open and... BLOCKED. You try again. Again. And again. Fail. Blocked. Friends only. "You must be the blog owner to read this." Eventually the sheer frustration of trying to see what is so important that someone would commit the hypocrisy of putting it on the internet but making it private increases blood-flow to your head until it explodes in a confetti of unsatisfied curiosity. Balls deep yo.

Okay, I understand wanting to avoid stalkers, pervs, sixty year-old men with massive collections of child pornography, and the occasional tranny who actually thinks s/he can "pass" - but c'mon! This is the internet. You're not so rich/famous/gorgeous that your average creepster is gonna waste time splattering their laptop screen for your tween-level goodies when they can see Lady Gaga with a camel-toe in under five-seconds via Google's search engine.

Why is your profile/page/blog blocked? What's so important? What's so fucking secret? And if it is... then why post it on the internet? You do realize Tom is totally selling that shit to gossip-mags for pennies on the dollar, whoring out your post-high school rants about "what you're gonna do with your life" to reality television writers to use as script fodder for the next episode of Charm School or Project Runway. Basically, nobody gives a damn.

I hate such passive-aggressive, contradictory, attention-seeking bullshit. There's something insidious about it that brings out my Medulla-Oblongata overdrive, turning me into some Jekyll/Hyde monstrosity who will literally hack the shit out of your pathetic profile and post its contents anonymously on Craigslist's Casual Encounters with the title, "Looking for a good time." I'm not impressed with your drama.

Why do people make Myspace profiles, Facebook pages, or blog posts, and then make them PRIVATE!? You don't want someone to see you, but still want to be "connected"? Are you "trying this out", but "not sure"? Is it to simply increase your amount of friend-requests???

What in the holy mother of Geebus P. Cryst sucking a donk from the end of Satan's cock kind of twisted cyberpunk voyeuristic peep-show logic is this? Seriously. Someone explain it to me. I really want to know.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

After listening to Amos Lee and Jason Mraz while browsing through my various Street Art collections for the last hour, I've decided upon the title for my next work.

Curbside Prophets and Street Corner Preachers.

It'll include an entire section devoted to my experiences with urban guerrilla artists - particularly those in the BA - while creatively fictionalizing my personal fascination with urban legends, myths, mysteries, and culture. The collection will be half poetry and half short-stories. I'm thinking I want to include guest-authors, but not sure about that yet, because I don't know how many pages I can afford this book to be unless I get it published through someone else/get a hefty amount of grant money/hire even more cheap labor than I did last time. Ahh, so excited! The idears in my head are pulling me apart like flesh-eating bacteria!

On the plus side, I've already got like five pieces written from previous moments of inspiration that I could use. Now all I need to do is write the rest... and then somehow pay for it/publish it!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

fever dreams sleep needthe dynamite reverie of hands moving to no soundcalloused palms flaking skin off every off beatfinger conductor to no music andall seem to see is his silence, but somethingbeing heard in the quiet — moan-humseizure melody — make ears gotta seal themselvesno noise is too much sound

(nothing left just broken things inside shaking 'roundcuts like glass, like cracked bullets blown from gunsfired off his brain firing offawareness: too many thoughts thinking but he'll save the sense from sensing this) up waking in sudden city crowd

he mimed over blackface — bright red lips, blue eyeshigh noon ray-burn the heat making they crazyno sweats dripping pores locked up like prison cellstongues lolled in the hot and turnedto hour hands dropping clock alarms that call out of nowhere(now here time constantly came punctualgood mannered guest)

they're so moving it's impossibleto catch up with what ran ahead, just lie thereshade plays cool blankets tummy tucked 'round butgutter smells and the smog... can't see the sky onlyfluorescent lights with moths' dirt wingsflicking dust in his nose

he had too much and gave it away butnothing came back nothing ever comes back(being lost is too much fun for things to go and be found again)the misplaced, misgiven pieces make change himpotato head doll replaced with something funniershould have parts been born interchangeableaccessories to design identity for: success!

always has a hand out just in case someone has one out too, maybethey'll touch randomlybeautiful entropybe song's laughter dancing anothertravelling troubadour playing

there's no anything held out, only never saidnot a smile just teeth and strained eyes, sometimes mouths buthe's scared to get near their lips speaking the strangewe can't comingle, new phrase lingo pinged forone-liners at parties of cocktails and cockteasing(suspected intentions — he doesn't get angry anymorehe just gets better)

mary jane smells sour in a sun-sweat humidity. all these people(not bearded bare-chested unwashed falling up in their headsnever dropped acid or horse or white powder snuff)breath that scent to make grinny-grin goodbye

Friday, July 10, 2009

We make monosyllabic constructions of odd-ends from language. As a self-styled comic-book afficionado, I will always be fascinated with this aspect of communicative verbiage, created to describe the indescribable sound of...

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Time to talk about this issue seriously. I've been wanting to explore the history/herstory for a long time now, about the disparity between men and women, about the sexism, about "victim status", and most importantly, about how the genders stand today.

Feminism (noun):

1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.2. (sometimes initial capital letter) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.3. feminine character.

Chauvinism (noun):

1. zealous and aggressive patriotism or blind enthusiasm for military glory.2. biased devotion to any group, attitude, or cause.

Looking at the definition of these two words, which many people throw around carelessly as labels/descriptions/judgments about others, it seems that our connotations hardly match their denotations. Surprising? Maybe so. Let us deconstruct!

Feminism apparently seems to have forgotten to include that along with equal rights they should be getting equal responsibilities, and Chauvinism is almost so generic of a word that applying it to men almost seems to be solely based on it's association with aggression and how that's a traditionally "male" characteristic.

Me, I am a masculist. I am assertive and passionate about my enthusiasm for being male, for being a guy, a dude, a bro, a homie, a motherfucking man! I don't need to defend my position, because I'd rather just attack yours... Okay, being serious, I mean that I identify positively with my masculinity, without the need to defend or justify it.

Now, most women are not feminists. Why? Because Feminism doesn't mean equality anymore. Feminism means an inbalance, an unequal sharing of power and freedom between the genders. (I'm making the assumption that most women don't believe themselves to be superior to men, or at least, don't support inequality.)

Today, Feminism as a movement doesn't really mean what it says, what it was begun as. Feminism today is part of our culture in such profound ways, most people don't really realize it - but not in a good way. Negative male stereotypes (such as sitcoms where the female-lead is a brilliant beautiful woman and the guy is a dumb-fuck lucky to have her) exist in plethora. It's not okay for a man to beat his wife, but okay for a woman to beat her husband. Women say they want chivalry and to be treated like a princess, but then still get mad when a man takes control. Oh, and let's not forget the goddamn Draft. Yeah... why is it only men get to go out and die for their country?

Today, Feminism means to me that you actually believe women are superior to men, and for all intensive purposes, that's what's happened in our country. It's not obvious or expected, but like all subtle truths, occupies those dark places we despise.

This is why I am so often labeled chauvinist, misogynist, asshole, jerk, douchebag, bastard, by many women who describe themselves as "raging Feminists", reading NOW magazine or the Manifesta, listening to the Vagina Monologues, and hating mainstream culture for pressuring impossible standards of beauty upon them... that they still religiously conform to.

People see me embracing my masculinity, and think, "what the fuck? you pig! don't you know that men are the cause of war, rape, murder, and all sorts of other evils in this world?" And to these obscenely ignorant women, I say: Cleopatra, Andrea Yates, and Aileen Wuornos. I say: go to [Toy Soldiers] and learn about real silent suffering.

This is why I read what I like to call, "Chauvinist literature", enjoy so-called "Testosterone Poisoning", photoshop wigs onto pictures of "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them", and leave the goddamn seat-up in my bathroom! (Because why should the expectation be on us to put it back down? Why not on women to put it back up?)

I feel a sort of self-inflicted duty to help combat the latent sexism present in our culture these days, a sexism directed specifically at masculinity, maleness... at men.

And as for the Feminism movement? Well, what with its own history of racism, classism, misandry, and the inescapable truth that it was never about equality but about power for women, I think eventually it will disintegrate into a myriad of factions, from Lipstick Lesbians to radical bra-burning herstory revisionists with no sense of direction or cohesiveness.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Always wanted to talk about myself but never felt the opportunity. Never noticed my segue was quite right to say, "Hey, let me share this which is about me with you!" All the time I listened - your stories, their stories, the whole spectrum of conversationalist miscellany. Was it advice they wanted? Was it validation? Was it an outlet? Was it just the knowledge that someone, anyone, was listening, really listening, for once in their goddamn life to what they really had to say...

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Never been one for taking pride in my country. I love it for the same reason I love the shameful members of my family - because I have to. The ties that bind us are ultimately unfortunately too profound to break.

Not that I hate America, I just don't get all crazy about it like most people. We can be beautiful... and we can be very ugly. We've done impossibly amazing things, and we've done completely disgusting things. We've helped save lives and restore countries, but we've destroyed them too. It's all one big bipolar pendulum swinging around; between good & evil, there lies America.

Originally had plans to drink and participate in requisite revelry, but decided against it. Stuffy nose combined with lethargy and lack of food in fridge has convinced me to order pizza and watch slew of faux-patriotic movies on Fox.

"And I’ve got nothing else to doBut waste this lazy afternoonSo I willSo I willAnd I take my cue from the old spruce treeSpends all day just watching the breezeFloat byFloat byAnd she watches the Kodiac bearWho knows how to live without going nowhere?All dayAll day

And my eyes will not shutAnd my legs will not strut

I was born to be a clownBut my girl she says to me to turn it downRight nowRight nowBut I can’t help it. Can’t you see?There’s a bright red light that shines on meAll dayAll dayI spend my time just running aroundChasing myself across the townAlwaysAlways

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Checked-up on the Happysad archives recently, and noticed Jeroen had a new slew of panels to read. So, I jumped into it like Scrooge McDuck into his ginormous pool of money.

Might have to give this tactic a try... at this point I'm desperate enough inside to give anything a shot - in the dark or not.

Yeah, this never made sense to me, and probably never will. I mean, I "get it", because I know basic psychology, and all that logical/illogical stuff, but I don't really understand it. Why do women read signals so ass-backwards? And why, for the love of gawd, why do people persist in telling me not to try too hard or show how much I care or act in ANY WAY that might give away the fact that I like this person (or that person). Are ya'll so damn confused yourselves that you live your lives on opposite-day?

I will keep trying, because I'm too stubborn to ever really give up, really, because everyone who says "just wait and let it happen" never had the bad luck that I do, because everyone who thinks they can wait around for love and it'll magically appear is lazy and delusional, because I'm proactive, because I'm assertive about my existence. No, I will do something, even if it hurts, because at least the pain lets me know I'm still alive - which is more than I can say for most people - and because I know what I want and where to go... I just don't know how.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Sure, Michael was a black boy/white woman, and maybe even an alien - but he was also the King of Pop! He ruled our musical-charts - and hearts - for a glorious four decades of moonwalking and catchy hooks. I ask pedophiles everywhere to continue mourning Michael Jackson the only way we know how - with promises of candy and top-ten songs galore!

Fellow Saboteurs

Look-eee-Loos

Required Text

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